Page 189 - dubliners

upon Lux. And Pius IX his predecessor’s motto was Crux
upon Crux— that is, Cross upon Cross—to show the differ-
ence between their two pontificates.’
The inference was allowed. Mr. Cunningham contin-
ued.
‘Pope Leo, you know, was a great scholar and a poet.’
‘He had a strong face,’ said Mr. Kernan.
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Cunningham. ‘He wrote Latin poetry.’
‘Is that so?’ said Mr. Fogarty.
Mr. M’Coy tasted his whisky contentedly and shook his
head with a double intention, saying:
‘That’s no joke, I can tell you.’
‘We didn’t learn that, Tom,’ said Mr. Power, following
Mr. M’Coy’s example, ‘when we went to the penny-a-week
school.’
‘There was many a good man went to the penny-a-week
school with a sod of turf under his oxter,’ said Mr. Kernan
sententiously. ‘The old system was the best: plain honest ed-
ucation. None of your modern trumpery....’
‘Quite right,’ said Mr. Power.
‘No superfluities,’ said Mr. Fogarty.
He enunciated the word and then drank gravely.
‘I remember reading,’ said Mr. Cunningham, ‘that one of
Pope Leo’s poems was on the invention of the photograph—
in Latin, of course.’
‘On the photograph!’ exclaimed Mr. Kernan.
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Cunningham.
He also drank from his glass.
‘Well, you know,’ said Mr. M’Coy, ‘isn’t the photograph

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